


The Free Sky Walker

by Shiori_Makiba



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Loss of Parent(s), Poetry, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8293241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiori_Makiba/pseuds/Shiori_Makiba
Summary: His name was Luke Skywalker and he was the freeborn son of a slave.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/gifts).



> Another character study bit inspired by two much lurking on fialleril's blog.

“The Free Sky Walker”

Luke loved stories.  
They were amongst  
his favorite things  
in the universe.

Because stories could  
transcend time and space.  
It didn't matter  
if something had happened far away.  
Or a very long time ago.   
As long as you had the stories.

Aunt Beru made sure  
Luke had as many of the stories  
as possible.

He knew that  
Aunt Beru hadn't told him  
all the stories she knew.  
And that some of the stories  
she told him had certain things hidden.  
But that was fine.

Luke was freeborn  
but he was still a Skywalker.  
He knew and had known  
from a young age  
that some things  
were best left unsaid.  
That some things  
had to remain secret.  
And that sometimes  
silence was the only way  
to keep those things hidden.

It wasn't that Luke _never_  
wondered about those hidden  
and missing stories.  
Because he very often did.  
But he understood that  
some things were secret.  
Had to be a secret.  
That lives and more might depend  
on something staying a secret.

That was lesson one  
from Aunt Beru.  
Because the homestead was chelik-ta.  
The lives and more importantly  
the freedom of the chelii  
who came to them  
depended on such places  
staying secret.

Not to mention that  
if the Depuran found out  
what they were doing,  
they would be killed.  
If not worse.

Aunt Beru taught him  
the rules for two reasons.  
First because there were  
good lessons in those rules  
for anyone, not just slaves.  
And secondly just in case  
the very worse should happen.

Because Luke might have  
been born free  
but so were a lot of people  
in chains right now.  
Their free birth had not  
protected their liberty,  
had not stopped someone  
from taking them from  
their homes and their families  
and declaring them property.

Sometimes all it took  
was being in the wrong place  
at the wrong time  
with the wrong people.

Luke knew he was  
no more immune to this  
than anyone else in the universe.  
Perhaps even less so.  
His name told everyone on Tatooine  
that his family had been slaves.  
And by some people's logic  
that meant they should still be slaves.  
His grandmother was a slave.  
His father was a slave.  
Therefore he should be a slave.  
Their later freedom and his free birth  
were merely illusions and one day  
someone would put him  
in his proper place.

Some of them even  
told him this to his face.  
Most of them weren't that direct but  
nonetheless made their opinion clear  
in their attitude and behavior  
toward him and others like him.

Luke keep an eye  
on both types  
at all times and  
didn't trust them an inch.  
It was all talk now.  
That didn't mean  
it would _stay_ talk.

It didn't help  
that the only people  
who told him  
he was being paranoid  
or too sensitive about   
'a few mean or rude remarks'  
were primarily ones  
who had never been slaves  
and as far as anyone could tell  
no one in their family  
ever had been slaves either.

In all fairness,  
Luke did acknowledge  
that it is hard to understand  
just how precious freedom was  
and just how easily it could be taken away  
when you've always had it.  
He himself didn't really understand it.  
Not the way the slaves and former slaves did  
for exactly that reason.

But most people didn't seem  
to have even Luke's  
intellectual understanding of  
just what a gift they had.

They didn't even  
entertain the possibility  
that their liberty could disappear  
faster than water under the noon suns.  
It was impossible.  
It might happen to somebody else  
but it could never happen to them.  
Slavery was something  
that happened to other people.  
Never them.

Luke knew that it could happen to him.  
Bad luck, or bad timing, or bad people or all three  
and he would be in chains  
just like his father and grandmother  
and all the other Skywalkers before him.

He hopes that  
it never happens.  
But he knows that  
it is not _impossible_.

Freedom is precious  
because it is fragile.  
It is too easily lost  
and not easily regained.

Given all that,  
it probably comes  
as no surprise  
that his favorites  
of the legend stories  
were those of  
Ekkreth the Sky-Walker.

Something about Ekkreth  
and their ever-changing form and  
never-ending supply of tricks and deception  
against their Depur just spoke to Luke.

He had heard  
several of the stories  
too many times to count  
but he never got tired of them.  
And was always on the hunt  
for ones he hadn't heard before.

He also loved telling them.  
Nothing seemed to help  
strengthen the resolve and  
conquer the fear of a   
chelii on the riya-chelik   
like stories of Ekkreth.  
Especially when spoken  
in their own tongue.

Luke would never stop  
being grateful that Aunt Beru,   
despite being as freeborn as himself,  
not only knew Amatakka  
but taught it to him  
from the cradle up.

A lot of freeborn children never learn it,   
for one reason or another.  
But Aunt Beru had never deprived him  
of what she could give him of   
his grandmother and father.

He will never meet  
either of them in this life  
but he has their language,   
their tzai recipe, and their stories.

Most of the time   
that was enough.

Sometimes it wasn't.  
Maybe it was selfish  
but he wanted more.  
Especially of his parents  
as he had precious little  
of them.

Most of the family stories were  
about his ancestors  
or his grandmother Shmi.

The ones about his father Anakin  
tended to be from when he was little.  
So sometimes he wished  
he had just one more story.  
Or something that had once  
belonged to his father,  
something he could hold in his hands  
knowing that once it had been  
in his father's hands as well.  
Or just one precious memory.

He could usually lessen  
that feeling about Anakin.  
After all, he at least had _some_ stories  
and knew _some_ things about Anakin Skywalker.

His mother was different.  
He knew almost nothing about her.  
Part of that was simply  
Aunt Beru didn't know much about her.  
She had only paid one visit  
to the homestead   
prior to her death.  
The other part was his mother  
was a secret.  
Luke didn't know exactly  
 _why_ she was secret.  
Maybe the same reason  
so much about his father  
was a secret.  
But knowing that didn't make  
starving off that _I want more_  
feeling any easier.

One of few things  
that did was flying.  
That was one of the reasons  
he loved it.

He had originally started  
because one of the few things  
he knew about Anakin Skywalker  
was that he was a pilot.

So in true kid logic,   
to be closer to his father,   
Luke had to learn to fly.  
But soon enough,   
he loved it for its own sake.

There was something  
just so good and pure about flying.  
No expectations.  
No fears.  
No sorrow.  
No secrets.  
Just him and the open sky.

And flying put him   
just a little bit closer   
to the stars   
he was going to go to one day.

Because he wanted to see them  
just to see them.  
Who could look at the night sky  
and not want to see those stars up close?

Because his mother was outsider  
who had came from one of them  
and maybe he could find out something  
about her amongst them.  
Through it was a long shot.  
Beautiful and kind  
was not much to go on

And because he just  
couldn't stay here forever.

People didn't understand  
his restlessness.  
Especially not Uncle Owen.  
But he was the Free Sky Walker.  
Did anyone really expect him  
to stay in one place with his feet  
forever planted to the ground?

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this piece was inspired by fiarell's Star Wars headcanon and her Double Agent Vader series in particular. Both of which I recommend highly.
> 
> Chelii means a runaway, an escaped slave, and is usually used to describe someone who’s actively on the run.  
> Riya-chelik is the freedom trail.  
> Chelik-ta is a stop on the freedom trail, a safe house, etc.  
> Depur is master, a slave owner.  
> Depuran is a collective word for slave owners.  
> All these words are from Amatakka.
> 
> Amatakka is the secret slave language of Tatooine. Luke is freeborn but was still taught how to speak it as his native tongue because it was his heritage. I headcannon that he tends to think certain things, especially things that Basic simply doesn't express very well or are things that the rest of the galaxy likes to ignore exist (like slavery), in Amatakka.
> 
> Ekkreth the Sky Walker is a trickster figure from Tatooine slave religion.


End file.
